12 Reasons Middle-aged Moms Should Stop Having Kids

12 Reasons Middle-Aged Moms Should Stop Having Kids

At a wedding shower recently, the bride’s twenty-year-old cousin from New Jersey asked me a question that ruined my day:

“Do you have any grandchildren?”  

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“Do you have a stronger pair of Spanx?  ‘Cuz you’re bulging out of yours,” I didn’t say because I didn’t think of it.  

“I’m definitely not old enough to have grandchildren!” I lied vehemently—just like I deny owning my David Hasselhoff “Knight Rider” Snuggie.

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“Oh yes, not old enough,” she said, thinking I was, too.

I wish I could’ve shot back with a clever remark, but I have CCM (Cerebellum Crispus Mortem), which is Latin for dead, crispy brain, in my case from overtanning with baby oil and iodine in the 70’s, I mean 80’s.

I’m plenty old enough to have grandkids right now, but my girls are only teenagers.  If they had popped out a baby already, I would’ve gone all O.J. and committed “Aggravated Decapitation of a Jerkwad Boyfriend.”  That’s a new, official category for violent crimes.  

http://vicseay.hubpages.com/hub/Redneck-101How-to-be-100-Redneck

In the South, jerkwad boyfriends taking advantage of teenage daughters is considered “just cause” for decapitation. The penalty is a few hours of community service speaking to highschoolers about how heads could roll when minors mix Miller Lite with mini skirts.

My day was salvaged when I got to hold a three-month-old baby.  I smiled and reminisced as I stared down at her—and then I realized she was blurry.  

That’s why God, in His wisdom, ordained that we women should stop procreating at middle-age.  Here are a few more of His reasons.

We’ve already burned our bridges with the elementary school principal, teachers, and the lady heading the school talent show.  Our kid would be on their hit list.  

I don’t think you’re supposed to take prozac while you’re breastfeeding.

When we squat down with our toddlers to feed the ducks at the lake, the kid gets trampled by crazed mallards because our knees lock up, responding that they have better things to do.  

When we wave goodbye to our son at pre-school, our bat-wings scare his friends. 

In another fourteen years, when our teenage son says, “I’m gonna ‘hang out’ with Katie,” we’ll be too oblivious of current teen-speak to know it means “spend the weekend in Destin” with Katie.

We’re so exhausted we’d threaten our kids, “Go to sleep or you’re gonna wake up that monster under your bed.”

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Strollers don’t come self-propelled.

Impatient with a kid’s tantrum, we’d toss him a sippy cup of Benadryl.

They don’t make arthritic diaper tabs.

When kids hit puberty, we won’t remember anything about the birds and the bees.

Kids might mistake the Viagra pills for blue M&M’s.

We won’t remember our Lamaze breathing techniques in the fitting room while our teenage daughters are trying on tiny bikinis.

I can’t wait to see the twenty-year-old at the Memphis wedding soon.  She needs to remember a few things—we’re in the South, I’ve got “just cause” for about everything, and I will jack her up, at least if my knees decide they don’t have anything better to do.